by G. P. Taylor
Malachi stepped closer to the fire and stared into the flames. Jonah joined him in his gaze as they watched the flames dance through the wood and cinders. “Soon no one dared say anything against him. Solomon and Campion would go from shop to shop asking for charity. It was never a good thing to say no. Those who did lived to regret it. There were accidents and always nearby would be Solomon to preach to the wary of the follies of humankind. He wants Tersias because he needs to know what his place will be in the future of this city. Solomon wants to build a bigger temple and it is he who will be worshipped.”
Jonah shrugged his shoulders; he had no concern for the ways of Solomon. Jonah held out his hands to the soft blaze of the fire, and then, looking up at Malachi, was surprised to see a tear roll slowly across his grimy cheek.
Malachi fumbled clumsily in his pocket for his dirty handkerchief. Quickly Jonah grabbed the fine blue silk kerchief that he had stolen from a Piccadilly fop and tenderly wiped several drops from Malachi’s wrinkled eyes.
“That was a kind thing to do for an old man,” Malachi said as he turned away from Jonah and stared into the fire. “I don’t know what tricks my mind is playing or why my heart should be bursting from my chest. The thing is, Jonah . . .” Malachi stopped speaking and looked around the room as he pulled on his beard anxiously. “The thing is, I can’t stop thinking about the boy. When I bought Tersias, he was just a chattel, something I thought I could trade. But the more time I spent in his presence, the more I knew he was different. I am not a man of compassion, but even I would find myself in the dark hours wondering what the boy had gone through and why one so young should have such misery thrust upon him.”
Malachi held out his stained hands towards Jonah. “See these?” he said shakily. “These hands bruised that boy and never did he complain. Once I held a burning fire-stick to his face to torment him and all he did was look back with those dead blind eyes that showed no emotion. This is my lament, my guilt . . . and the cause of my tears. Today I had a beating that taught me so much. With every blow I thought of what I had done to him, every bruise speaks of my anger. I had been so quick with my wrath, my tongue was like a sharpened blade, and yet when I lay in the mud left for dead, it was his blind eyes that stared back into my mind.” Malachi threw another log into the embers of the fire as he looked at Jonah and searched his face for some sign of sympathy. “My life has been like a long winter without the joy of Christmas to console me through the dark days.”
Malachi took the wolf-head spoon and breathed upon it before wiping it against the cuff of his coat and burying it deep in his pocket. He staggered to the makeshift altar that was pressed against the far wall of the stable. It was littered with the conjurings of his alchemy: dried frogs, a living toad locked in a large glass jar, the dried tail of a pig, several cups of fermenting stomach-broth and a large flour sack filled with saltpetre.
“Somewhere here I have a remnant of my magic,” he said as he searched the nitty-gritty that cluttered the altar, moving to one side a crumpled sheet of lead that he had once tried to turn into gold. “I know it is here somewhere and I would like you to see it. Maybe then you would understand why—”
There was a sudden frantic pounding on the door and the wood began to blister with each blow. Seconds later the metal-strapped beams gave way and fell to the floor.
Several of Malpas’s militia men burst in through the smashed-open stable door. Jonah leapt across the room to Malachi and pushed him to the floor, his quick fingers picking clean every pocket of his frock coat. Malachi sought sanctuary under the altar and cowered like a cornered rat against the wall, his whiskered, tear-streaked face peeking out from the darkness.
“MALACHI!” shouted Skullet as he pushed aside the militia and stepped into the room, clasping his wolf staff. “You’re a thief, a villain and a liar. I warned you of the cost of your trickery and now I come as your judge, jury and executioner. . . . Search him!” he shouted to the guards.
Malachi was dragged from under the altar by his beard and spread-eagled on the cold floor.
“What do we have here?” Skullet asked warily as he looked at Jonah hiding under the table. “That’s not the boy we want. Who’s this street rat? Come out, boy, or my men will rip off your ears as they pull you from your hole.”
In the shadow of his hiding place, Jonah took the Mastema and plunged its glowing blade into the horsehair plaster that loosely covered the wall, burying it to the hilt so it would not be found. Then he crawled into the light of the room and got up from his knees to stand before Skullet and his guards. Taking his wolf-rod, Skullet pressed it firmly against his cheek. “A boy, a fine boy without blemish or wrinkle. . . . A little dirty and in need of his yearly bath, but still a nice specimen.” Skullet barked out an order to the militia, who gripped Malachi firmly to the floor, pressing his face into the dirt. “Search him! He has stolen from Lord Malpas and for that he will be hung by the neck and dangle from a Fleet branch from dawn till dusk.”
“He has nothing,” Jonah spat back as a guard grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him to the door. “It’s me you want, I stole the wolf-spoon, not Malachi.”
Skullet turned towards him as a red rage crossed his face.
“Then you are a double thief convicted in the presence of all these witnesses, and for that you both will hang.” Skullet laughed as he signalled for the militia to take the boy away. “No one makes a fool of me, boy. I know Malachi took the spoon when he came last evening, and you have never been near the house.”
“Malachi isn’t a thief. You stuffed the trinket in his pocket and no court in the land will believe you. There’s more to your accusations than a silver spoon pinched from Malpas,” Jonah sneered as he was dragged away. “Fleet jail won’t keep me and your chains will melt upon my wrists and I will call it a great joy to plunge a dagger through your heart,” Jonah said with newfound confidence as he was taken into the alleyway and shackled to a cart led by a small fat pony.
“Magnus Malachi, magician and magus extraordinaire . . . whatever shall be done with you?” Skullet enquired as he pushed him in the face with his rod. “Gave the evidence to the boy, did you? That won’t get you off the gallows.” Skullet stopped and looked about the stable, his eye catching the empty cage. “Where do you hide the oracle?”
“You are too late. The boy has gone, stolen from me but three hours ago, taken by the Solomites. Your loss is their gain and from them, not even Lord Malpas could retrieve his goods.”
“A hearty story to deceive me from the truth, perhaps?” Skullet said as he began to twist the wolf-stick and pull the black-lacquered shaft away from a bright silver blade. “Perhaps this will loosen your tongue . . . or cut it from your head.”
XIII
THE GIAOUR
Deep within the Citadel, Tara stumbled along the smoke-filled passageway, looking for her escape. From far below in the labyrinth she could hear the screaming of Campion as he called the alarm of the fire.
Tara fell to her hands and knees and crawled beneath the dense cloud of smoke that was sucked higher by an icy draught, dragging with it the stench of the cells. The whole of the Citadel had been brought to life as from every direction came the clanging of handbells and the clattering of feet running towards her in a maelstrom of smoke and harsh voices. She pressed herself against the cold stone walls as a troop of devotees ran past her. To her complete amazement, not one of the Solomites saw her in the thick smoke.
It was then, at the point of blindness and suffocation, that Tara felt the doorway with her fingers and, reaching up to the handle, found a thick iron key that had been left in the lock as the keeper had fled in panic. She quickly turned the lock and pulled on the handle. Pressing the door open with her foot, she peered inside the brightly lit cell.
There, surrounded by several lampstands lit by long white candles and tied to a large oak chair, was Tersias. He was draped in purple cloth and upon his head was a golden helmet that looked old and well worn. It c
overed his eyes, pressing tightly against his flesh, cutting into his cheeks. It was like a crown, studded with green gemstones that sparkled in the bright candlelight. All around him were offerings of the finest foods set on silver platters.
Tara got to her feet, took the key from the lock and slammed the door shut. She grabbed a cloth from Tersias’s throne and stuffed it between the wood and the floor to keep out the black, sooty smoke that now filled the passageway outside. Then she turned the key in the lock, sealing them both in the room.
Tersias didn’t move.
“Tersias,” Tara whispered as she untied the leather thongs and shook him by the shoulder, trying to wake him. “Tersias!” she shouted in his face. “Wake up! We have to escape!”
The boy began to stir. His thin lips mumbled as his hands lifted from the throne and touched the front of the helmet.
Tara grabbed the metal helmet and began to twist it from his head. Tersias cried out as if in deep pain, his hands reaching for the golden dome to keep it in place. “NO!” he shouted as he tried to push her away.
“Tersias, it’s Tara—I have come for you, we can escape,” she said, still trying to free the boy. She saw a trickle of blood dripping down from underneath the helmet and felt under the rim with her smallest finger, now realising that the helmet was pinned to the boy’s forehead and his temples by four golden thorns pressed through the metal and tipped with large green gemstones. “Tersias, this will hurt, but it is for your freedom,” she said as she twisted the first thorn from the rim of the coronet, pulling it from his head.
The boy winced in pain as she dragged the thorns from his skull one by one, throwing them to the floor. “Whoever did this to you was a madman,” she said as she looked at the final thorn in the palm of her hand. Rows of sharp prickers edged each side of the twisted pin.
“Why do you come for me?” Tersias asked as he got to his feet and gripped the arm of the throne, not knowing where he was.
“We have to get out of here. They will come for us, they will kill us.” As Tara spoke the words, she realised the true danger of their predicament. Until that moment she had hidden her fear for the future, hoping against hope that Jonah would be there for her. “Tersias, tell me what is to come,” Tara asked as she took him by the hand to lead him to the door, wanting the oracle to prophesy kindness and long life.
“I know nothing,” he replied. “When they brought me into this place, the voices couldn’t follow. The creature that speaks to me, the Wretchkin, it cannot find me. As soon as the crown was placed upon my head, every forethought was stripped from me and I was doubly blind. Solomon sang and chanted around me. I could hear him lighting candles. I was made to sip from a chalice, wine that burnt my tongue and took me to another place, filling my head with sleep and dreams. He told me that as long as I was in this circle of light, the voices would stay away. Then they tied me to the throne and left me alone.”
“We cannot stay with these people,” Tara said. “Let’s go.”
“I know a way to escape,” Tersias said, gripping the thick base of a large golden candlestick that was embedded into the stone floor. “I heard him, I counted the footsteps and here he paused. There was a loud click like the cocking of a pistol and a sudden gust at the back of my neck. Solomon left the chamber and I heard the stone slide back. There is another way from this place, different from the door you entered.” He fumbled further, his fingers sliding along the cracks and round the thick feet. “Use your eyes, Tara. What can you see?”
“If I knew what I was looking for, I could help you, but in this search I am as blind as you are,” Tara replied.
“A spring, a lock, something that is different. It has to be here, this was the place he walked to, I heard it.” Tersias spoke excitedly, the desire to escape growing in his heart as the cursed trance of the helmet ebbed from his mind.
Tara looked at Tersias, a boy who had the understanding of a man. Until that time she had not cared much for his condition. He was a brand to be plucked from the fire, a chattel to impress Jonah. As he sat upon his throne draped in the purple coat and breeches, dressed as a disciple of Solomon, Tara knew that she looked upon a boy. He was flesh and blood, not just a circus trick but a child, just like her.
“You can be with us, one of us, a brother to Maggot. We can be your family,” she said as she grabbed the helmet that lay at her feet and held it before his sightless stare. “We will take this, it will keep the voices away. We could find a priest who will rid you of their haunting. You could be well again.” She spoke quickly, her mind racing. “I once heard of a man, a teacher, who could cause the deaf to hear and the blind to see. I was told his desire is that we are all made well. We could search for him and when he is found ask him to do that for you.”
“And what would we give such a man? If it were true, then he could ask for the world in exchange for my sight,” Tersias said quietly.
“They said he asked for nothing, but I would give him all I had,” Tara said as she tried to think of what she could possibly give.
“All of nothing is nothing,” Tersias replied. The boy gave a deep sigh. “I miss old Malachi,” Tersias said mournfully as he thought of the old man. “There was a meanness and a roughness to him, but he was still the kindest of all my masters. He would talk to me for hours, tell me all he would do. Once he called me a son. Now I will never see the fool again.”
“If we don’t go quickly, we will never see the light of day again,” Tara shouted as the thud of footsteps beat along the passageway and the clanging of bells ebbed away. “They have conquered the fire and now they will come for us.”
A heavy banging on the cell door vibrated the whole wall, sending a shower of dust cascading from the ceiling like a fall of fresh snow. “You have the key, boy?” Campion shouted as he beat against the door. “Locked yourself in, did you? It’s safe now, the fire is gone. Solomon will soon be back and he will not be pleased to have the key gone missing.”
There was a long silence as no one spoke. “Don’t make me knock down the door, I can see the key is in the lock. . . . Now, open the door and let us tend to your needs.”
“He thinks you are alone,” Tara whispered. “Keep him at bay and I will look for the catch—if there is one . . .”
“I am safe,” Tersias said as Campion poked at the lock, hoping to push the key from the chamber. “I will wait until the master returns, then when Solomon is here, I will come out.”
“He is in the city on important business. Come to the door, turn the key and LET ME IN!” Campion shouted, his voice so powerful that it rattled the door on its hinges.
“I am but a blind boy and know not how to get to the door, so how can I turn the lock? If I could find it in my perpetual darkness, then I should call it a miracle,” Tersias teased.
“The same way you . . . the same way . . .” Campion faltered—he remembered strapping the boy to the chair and placing the gold dome upon his head before leaving him, and he realised now that there must be another person in the room with Tersias. “Neither of you can get out of that place,” Campion blustered. Furiously he poked at the lock, trying to jiggle the key from the hole. “I’ll have you both, and as for the girl, she will have a beating far worse than what she gave to me . . .” He kicked against the door.
“I’m alone, what do you talk of?” Tersias said. “The girl has long gone, I heard her screams as she fled the fire.”
“You are a liar and for that I’ll punish you,” Campion shouted as he beat his fist against the door and stomped his feet back and forth, knowing not what to do next. “Open the door, girl, or I’ll have you blinded like your friend and never again will you gaze at my pretty face.”
“What did you hear Solomon do when he stood by the candlestick?” Tara asked Tersias quietly, unable to find any catch to open their way of escape.
“I heard his heels click upon the stone, then there was nothing for a second, then another click and then the gust blew the back of my neck. The door is in the
wall behind me, that’s where I heard the stone sliding and grinding when he left the chamber.”
“Then he must have done something with this one here,” Tara said as she pushed against the candlestick, tilting its base from the ground and spilling sizzling wax onto the stone floor.
There was a loud click, and beneath them a whirl of ratchets shuddered the stones as the far wall was dragged to one side, stone scraping upon stone. A dank breeze bellowed into the room, wafting the candlelight and flickering the flames to cast warped shadows like grasping hands on the high ceiling.
“We have a magic that will vanish us from this place, Campion,” Tara shouted as she dragged Tersias towards the opened wall. “Good-bye. You will never find us, and I doubt if you have the strength to take down that door.”
Her taunting inflamed the beast. Campion rose up, took in a long deep breath and clenched his hand into a giant fist, lifting it as high as he could as he prepared to strike the wood. “No one gets away from Campion!” he screamed as he beat on the door again and again. The wood blistered and the key was knocked to the floor.
And then, Campion plunged his fists towards the door, cracking the thick oak beams. He stepped back, his narrow, beady eyes examining the door that now hung loosely upon its hinges. Then he took a sudden step forward, pulled back his head and butted it against the wood. The beams gave way, splitting the door in two.
“Campion’s come for yer!” he shouted as his eyes searched the room for the children. “No tricks, Campion hates tricks . . . ,” he said as he hunted behind the throne for the children, unaware of the existence of the tunnel just feet from where he searched.
Tersias and Tara heard his brash shouting. They stood together in a tight passage lined with shimmering white stone and lit with the heart-lamps as far as they could see. Blowing towards them was a gentle breeze that smelt of lavender and fresh figs. Tersias sniffed at the breeze.
